War Born
The War Born (Bakl: Yadharnwr) are a "race" of magical living constructs created by the ancient Baklunish to fight their ongoing war with the Suel Imperium. This ancient war is long over, reduced to cultural prejudices, and a tendency for swarthy skinned and pale skinned humans to be slightly mistrustful of each other, and the War Born are buried with it in the sands of the Sea of Dust. Appearance War Born are immediately recognizable as something other than human. They stand slightly taller than their creators, and vary from barrel chested to lithe and nearly skeletal. They bones are marble, their flesh living wood, and their skin metal. Their minds are magical matrices enchanted into "thoughtcrystals," and a similarly glowing crystal in their chests pulses with magical radiance which courses through the veins and tubes which carry the alchemical elixir which flows through them like blood. The Baklunish artificers who created the Yadharnwr saw their creation as an art and a way to glorify the gifts their gods had given them, covering every inch of metal plating with intricate carvings and molds and acid washing. Gears and pistons only appear where they enhance the artful form of the Yadharnwr. Because of their constructed forms, Yadharnwr have little need for armour, and because of their artificial natures, little need for covering, thus they wear clothing only for ornament, favouring flowing saris, loose dhoti's, thin veils and scarves, baggy breeches, wide sashes, and delicate slippers, like those worn by the ancient Baklunish who made them. All known War Born were made during the time of the Baklunish Empire, and were either discovered by adventurers in the Sea of Dust, or spontaneously reactivated and dug themselves out of ruins and sand. Their chasis are commonly scratched or sand-polished, though they often do their best to restore themselves. Personality Every last war born was created with the singular purpose to serve in an army. Emotion and creativity were not required, only obediance and competancy. That said, the Yadharnwr emerged from their creation showing not only the obedience and piety that were intended, but capable of feeling and thinking for themselves. They were, however, created to be obedient soldiers, and those that did not obey willingly were controlled with magic, and those that still resisted were not considered worth recovering and restoring when lost in battle. Thus, in an artificial mimic of natural selection, only those Yadharnwr which stifled their emotions and individuality for the sake of their master's orders survived to be buried for the ages. Today, a few thousand Yadharnwr have emerged from the deserts and mountains to the west of the Flanaess, and began integrating into society. They have no masters, as they are little more than legend to the descendants of their creators, and they have little in the way of basic needs. They focus, for perhaps the first time in the hundreds of years since their creation, on their own goals and ambitions and desires. There are a few schools of thought amongst the war born--the Fleischstreben seek to know what it is to be human like their creators, and see the conversion of themselves to true flesh and blood as the highest goal to which a war born can aspire. The Zanraidr seek to abolish the humanity in themselves, seeing it as an impurity in their construct minds, and strive to become purely magical machines. The Zweierlei see themselves as unique beings, living constructs separate from golems and humans, but combining aspects of both. These factions are fairly new, created only in the last hundred years or so as Yadharnwr have reactivated, thus they took their names from modern language. Fleischstreben war born verge on being wild, uncontrollable hedonists, seeking to experience everything they can so as to feel things and create shared experiences with humans and other non-constructs. They drink barrels of ale with no need for a drop, consume entire roasts without cause for sustenance, sleep days away feigning the need for rest, purchase shape changing magics that allow them flesh to endulge in pleasures of, and generally completely forsake a life of fighting and strife for one of indulgence. Zanraidr jetison their emotions and thoughts. They strive for a cold calculating mindset, like the gears of a clock. They forsware pleasure and recreation, and pursue endless toil and activity. Zweierlei take in all that they can, that they may then analyze it for personal significance. A Zweierlei may walk straight into a market to purchase an apple with an ancient coin and take a single bite, then chew, and contemplate every part of the action--those given to self-focus often crush the now unnecesary fruit, while those who are more outwardly focused will hand it to a nearby beggar or child, and then walk off. They acknowledge their artificial nature, but often will describe culture and many trappings of living culture to be artificial as well, and examine religion, gender, occupation, status, art and society that they may construct the Zweierlei society or a personal meaning and personality like they would plan and create a machine or painting or novel. Zweierlei may be called fake by the living, but any indignation by a female indentifying war born who is commited to a loving partner would only be the knowledge that such an accusation should be insulting, but isn't when one is truly artificial, and she would instead wear it with pride. Society The war born have two societies, and a large number of individuals who eschew either in favour of their own affairs or those of other races. Zweierlei society is a peculiar thing, difficult for the living to take true part in, as war born's complete lack of need for food, elimination, sleep or even shelter save from the most extreme weather means that many social events are completely divorced from the props and timings that the living and breathing use to build societies. Zanraidr society is completely alien to most living creatures, only comfortable in the loosest of terms to a few handfuls of types of outsiders. There are no social gatherings without purpose. There is no rest unless repair is critically needed. There is no shelter save for when the weather would impede work. There is no interaction save that with a clear utility. Some Zweierlei are ambivalent towards the idea of a war born society and instead create their own personal truths within a large cosmopolitan city society. There are Zanraidr which eschew joining the Zanraidr Mechanism and instead find a role that they are particularly well suited to within living cities, often tedious hard labour or hazardous occupations. Fleischstreben almost all reject the idea of a war born society in favour of joining human society as humans. There are a few hundred or so Fleischstreben which advance the idea of a purely-living war born society--much like elves and halflings have their seperate societies from humans--but they are extreme outliers. War Born Outside the Baklunish Empire The baklunish were not the only beings to conceive of the creation of artificial soldiers. Their enemies, the Suel Imperium, captured no small number of Yadharnwr, and reprogrammed or reverse engineered them. These suloise War Born were called Slarekkr, and were more uniformly created to be lithe and powerful. Their frames tend to use more metal than those of Yadharnwr, but are still composites. Etchings cover their bodies in mirror of Suloise tattoos and faintly glow blue regardless of the colour of the slarekkr's thoughtcrystal glow. Seemingly completely separately from the Baklunish-Suloise Wars, the elves created the Ravancael, small, slender creatures of artifice more suited to the bow and stealth. They are primarily made of stone and wood, but their frames do bare light metal armouring, frequently mithral. Creating the War Born All war born are made in roughly the same manner. An artificer takes stone, wood, metal, and crystals, creates from them a more or less humanoid form, and then infuses the crystals with some manner of soul or spirit, which is transformed into the mind and soul of the war born. Yadharnwr and Slarekkr are made with stone skeletons, muscles made of green wood fibers enchanted so as to continue living past harvest, and a skin of metal over most, if not all of the frame. Their heads are purely articulated metal around a fist sized natural crystal enscribed with words of binding. Ravancael use much less metal and stone than other war born, using stout oak heart wood for their skeletons, lacking crystals entirely, eschewed for specially scribed river stones, and using only small amounts of metal to protect their more delicate joints. The choice of a bound spirit depends on the culture which created a war born. The Baklunish employed a sort of small elementally-tied outsider known as a gen as the motive forces for their construct soldiers. The Suloise opted for a more pragmatic source--the planes themselves, and typically the plane of positive energy. Ravancael spirits are created from minor forest spirits, typically the spirits of trees, but also occasionally animal spirits. War Born Racial Traits Living Construct Subtype All War Born are constructs with the Living Construct subtype. Living Constructs do not receive bonus hit points based on size, have simulated metabolisms due to the magic which animates them, and otherwise differ from standard constructs in many ways, as detailed below. -A Living Construct derives its Hit Dice, base attack bonus progression, saving throws, and skill points from the class it selects. Traits: A living construct possesses the following traits. -Unlike other constructs, living constructs have Constitution scores. -Unlike other constructs, living constructs do not have low-light vision or darkvision. -Unlike other constructs, living constructs are not immune to mind-affecting spells and abilities. -Immunity to poison, sleep effects, paralysis, disease, nausea, fatigue, exhaustion, effects that cause the sickened condition, and energy drain. -Living constructs cannot heal damage naturally. -Unlike other constructs, living constructs are subject to critical hits, nonlethal damage, stunning, ability damage, ability drain, and death effects or necromancy effects. -Living constructs can be affected by spells that target living creatures as well as by those that target constructs. Damage dealt to a living construct can be healed by a cure light wounds spell or repair light damage spell, for example, and a living construct is vulnerable to a disable construct spell and harm. However, spells from the healing subschool and supernatural abilities that cure hit point damage provide only half their normal effect to a living construct, as do spells which do damage with negative energy, such as inflict light wounds or harm. -Living Constructs do not need to eat, sleep, or breathe, but they can still benefit from the effects of consumable spells and magic items such as heroes' feast and potions. -Although living constructs do not need sleep, a living construct spellcaster must rest for 8 hours before preparing spells. *+2 Strength, +2 Constitution, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma: War born are resilient and powerful, but their difficulty in relating to other creatures makes them seem aloof or even hostile. *Medium: As medium constructs, war born have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size. *Construct (Living Construct) *War born have a base land speed of 30 feet. *'Composite Plating:' The plating used to build a war born provides a +2 armor bonus; this plating is not natural armor and doesn't stack with the other effects that give an armor bonus (other than natural armor). This composite plating occupies the same space on the body as a suit of armor or a robe, and thus a war born character cannot wear armor or magic robes. War born can be enchanted just as armor can be. The character must be present for the entire time it takes to enchant him. *Composite plating provides a war born with a 5% arcane spell failure chance, similar to the penalty for wearing light armor. Any class ability that allows a war born to ignore the arcane spell failure chance for light armor lets him ignore this penalty as well. *The unusual physical construction of war born makes them vulnerable to certain spell and effects that normally don’t affect living creatures. A war born is affected by repel metal and chill metal as if he were wearing metal armor. Likewise, a war born is affected by a repel metal or stone as if he were wearing metal armor. A war born is repelled by repel wood. The iron in the body of a war born makes him vulnerable to rusting grasp. The creatures takes 2d6 points of damage from the spell (Reflex half; save DC 14+ caster's ability modifier). A war born takes the same damage from a rust monster's touch. (Reflex 17 DC half). Spells such as stone to flesh, stone shape, warp wood, and wood shape affect objects only, and thus cannot be used on the stone and wood parts of a war born. *A war born responds slightly differently from other living creatures when reduced to 0 hit points. A war born with 0 hit points is disabled, just like a living creature. He can only take a single move action or standard action in each round, but strenuous activity does not risk further injury. When his hit points are less than 0 and are greater than -10, a war born is inert. They are unconscious and helpless, and he cannot perform any actions. However, an inert war born does not lose additional hit points unless more damage is dealt to him, as with a living creature that is stable. *'Light Fortification (EX):' When a critical hit or sneak attack is scored on a war born, there is a 25% chance that the critical hit or sneak attack is negated and the damage is instead rolled normally. *A war born has a natural weapon in the form on a slam attack that deals 1d4 points of damage. *'Automatic Languages:' Common and one of the following- Ancient Baklunish, Ancient Suloise or Elven. Bonus Languages: Any. *'Favored Class:' Fighter. A multiclass war born fighter class does not count when determining whether he takes an experience point penalty for multiclassing. Other War Born Models The above information is for the most common model of war born. Other models have been made, and have slightly differing traits. The below traits are '''in addition to '''the standard traits, unless otherwise noted. Ravancael *+2 Dexterity, +2 Constitution, -2 Wisdom, -2 Charisma- These adjustments replace the standard War Born ability scores. *Small size *20 ft land speed War Born Charger Chargers are hulking war born, like ogre-sized gorillas, which were created to be less intelligent, but much more resilient. They are intelligent to interact with other races, but typically are treated more like particularly bright animals, even by other War Born. *Equivalent to a fourth level character *4d10 Racial Hit Die *Racial Feats- The Charger has two feats for it's racial hit dice, which always includes Adamantine Plating. *+10 Strength, +10 Constitution, -6 Intelligence, -4 Wisdom, -8 Charisma *Large Size *30 ft base speed, lowered to 20 by adamantine plating. *The charger has two massive adamantine fists, granting it 2 slams which deal 1d8 damage and overcome DR as adamantine. *Moderate Fortification War Born Character Options Generally speaking, War Born are allowed to take the regional feats of their creators (with some exceptions--there are no Kord-Blooded War Born, for example). They also have a handful of other options, mostly feats. A War Born may take any Warforged feat as a regional feat. Suggested Reading Material Warforged a thread on the Gaming Den Rilesh, Mindforged a short story about a construct being's experience in biological society